The North West Simon Community would like to thank all who supported our recent church gate collection which amounted to €137.90 in the half parish of Aughawillan. This information came via a mobile voice message and the caller did not mention the amount raised in Corraleehan. As the saying goes “to err is human and to forgive devine”. The money raised goes towards preventing homelessness in Counties Leitrim, Sligo and Donegal.

Fodder Crisis

As a result of what we are hearing and reading about, we must conclude that we are facing the worst farming crisis in living memory. Local land is “burnt brown as a berry” as the old folk used to say and that also applies to the P.F.F.T. in West Cavan. Worse still, there are reports about how bovine “undertakers” are conveying the corpses of deceased cows to their resting places in their multi-body “hearses”. Locally, much of the land has been so wet for so many years on the trot it would give a snipe a heartburn but enough grass grew on it just the same to keep the proverbial wolf at the door. This year, in total contrast, the continuing combination of dry and cold resulted in low soil temperatures thus preventing the “kick-starting” of the growth process with disastrous consequences.

Last week, we read in a daily paper about how an average of one Irish farmer a week is bringing forward his appointment with the Grim Reaper. This is due to a combination of factors like most notably the once “generous” banks refusing point blank to lend them money to buy silage and concentrates to tide them over the current shortage and the prospect of having to let out a herd of cattle onto fields which are as bare as a baby’s bum.

When lads like us were in our teens and early 20s we used to hear the padre in the Sunday morning house of worship pray along with the “Lord graciously hear us” congregation for good weather to save the day and crops and it always seemed to work a treat due apparently to divine intervention. One night in our local anaesthetic AKA the Viking Lounge, the late lamented Harold Crawford, after a conversation about the increasing incidence of shootings and stabbings and the general decline in morals in the country said, “Ah, Godblessis, the whole thing is gone from the people quit prayin’“.

What’s New Pussycat?

Since we last sent local notes to the Leitrim Observer, we have had the death of one of if not the most colourful females ever to have sported rouge lipstick, mascara or high heels of all time, the unforgettable Maggie Thatcher who the Russians, believe it or not, christened the “Iron Lady”. She all but crushed the British trade unions and turned the coal miners into dust or could we say “slack”. When poor peace-loving Garret Fitzgerald RIP tried to reason with her about a solution to problems north of the border in 1981, she famously said, “Out Out Out!” to her male counterpart, reducing him to ribbons. In that same year, she stuck her stilletos into General Galtieri when the Argentinian had the gall to invade the Falklands. Another victory for a female over a male leader which must have been a bitter pill to swallow at the time. Like the Fuhrer, Hilter himself, she also survived an assassination attempt in Brighton in 1984, a visit to the “loo” having saved her skin on that occasion.

As they say, there is a funny side to everything and one remembers how in the thick of Troubles in the north, we used to look forward to reading the late Cormac McGill’s Dromod notes in the Observer and how he gave his wit for her to such an extent he once opined that she wore underwear made of steel or to be maore precise “tin” if you remember.

Well, what should be our final salute to the woman who would have the last word with an echo? Maybe we could settle for may she “rust” in peace.

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